To Life, L'Chaim
Preface: This post was for Sunday, May 15! Have fun reading--so I'm so behind due to internet or lack thereof!
I haven't been to church in a long time. In a really long time.
I haven't been to Mass in an even longer amount of time.
But today, we went. And we didn't go just anywhere--we went to the Duomo for mass at 9 AM. And it was, like Italy, just beautiful.
Although the entire service was in Italian, I was comforted by the preists voice and his graceful inflections within his language. The stained glass windows, the marble floors, the gorgeous statues--it was a wonderful way to visit such a special and historic place. Very peaceful and centering.
We then reluctantly made our way to do everyone's favorite chore (NOT)...laundry. An interesting experience to say the least. Chris, who thought the token machine was a change machine, because you have to have these bizarre tokens to do laundry (not change...), put in a 20 and received instead, 20 Euros worth laundry tokens. When, in fact, we only need 6 Euros worth.
Fun.
Well, after fiddling with the washer, and playing with where the soap is supposed to go (for a good 15 mins) AND accepting the fact that we now have LOTS of tokens that we will never use again, a man with an instantly confused face, walks into the laudromat. It's then that Chris, thank you God, sells her tokens to the man. He then tells us about himself, that he is from the Phillipines and here with three kids on vacation. And together, the three of us, two Americans and Phillipino try our best to help one another with the laundry.
If that's not good enough for a sitcom, soon walks in a young girl who we later find out is German and from Koln. She too is confused and her English is broken, but she almost puts a 50 Euro into the machine and Chris yells to save her life. So now, together, two Americans, a Phillipino and a German struggle together to do laundry together.
And then, connected by the forces of laundry, three continents are having a converstaion about their lives, their trips, and, of course, laundry.
It may not be cool to you but to me, I thought it was freaking awesome.
It's after that that Chris and I travel to the Uffizi to go on another Context tour (these tours are fantastic-the woman who guided us for MIchelangelo's life for example was a Context tour. Book them whenever you can when you go overseas-they don't allow more than six people in your group and it makes a WORLD of difference.). This time we are paired with a man named Maurizio with shaggy black hair and a thick Italian accent, who Chris might have had a little crush on...
We toured for three and a half hours. We saw Medieval gothic works, complete with the gold leafing that was famous back then. We saw the Birth of Venus. We saw works by Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Botticelli (just to name a few).
We did all of that for three and a half hours and didn't even TOUCH this massive museum. But I loved it. Gorgeous. My favorite painting was Tondo Donni by Michelangelo. A round piece of art with colors that were so vibrant-I wanted so badly to take a picture, and even though I could've gotten away with it, I figured for the sake of the art and for respect for the artist, I decided not to.
After the Uffizi, we met up with our friends Wanda and Jenny. I believe I mentioned them in a previous blog and that we had plans to meet up with them for dinner. After we finally get a hold of each other and meet our newest friends, we stop at a local bar for a glass of wine and then around 8:30 PM make our way to our desination dinner, Il Latini, a family style pure pure pure Italian restaurtant.
When we arrive, we have to wait a few minutes but to make our wait "even sweeter", as the owner said, he gave us white wine and cheese.
Yep, I don't hate it.
And then we proceed to our table where we are seated with Dominique, a Swiss enginner, and Maria, a Russian (who now lives in Norway), who were both on business. I could write for hours about our meal, but I think it's better if you ask for the stories in person from either me or Chris. But LOTS of AMAZING food was eaten, wine was drunk, grappe almost killed us, Limoncini was given to us without even asking, and pictures were taken thanks to our amazing and patient waiter, Antonio.
Let me also quickly state, that Antonio was also amazing because cooked our steak for us after he saw our faces with the beyond raw piece meat that we were given...We knew this, but traditional Florentine bistecca (steak) is only charred on the grill five minutes on each side. AND it's three inches thick. Oh yeah, you do the math of what that looks like...RAW...
An amazing night and now with new friends in Switzerland and Norway, Wanda, Jenny, Chris, and I pranced and waltzed around Florence, slowly making it back to our hotels (Oh, and I may have jumped on a carosel...and been thrown off a carosel...). And now the four of us will be meeting in Siena to have another glorious meal.
To life. L'chaim.
Ciao ciao!
Love love,
Adrienne
I haven't been to church in a long time. In a really long time.
I haven't been to Mass in an even longer amount of time.
But today, we went. And we didn't go just anywhere--we went to the Duomo for mass at 9 AM. And it was, like Italy, just beautiful.
Although the entire service was in Italian, I was comforted by the preists voice and his graceful inflections within his language. The stained glass windows, the marble floors, the gorgeous statues--it was a wonderful way to visit such a special and historic place. Very peaceful and centering.
We then reluctantly made our way to do everyone's favorite chore (NOT)...laundry. An interesting experience to say the least. Chris, who thought the token machine was a change machine, because you have to have these bizarre tokens to do laundry (not change...), put in a 20 and received instead, 20 Euros worth laundry tokens. When, in fact, we only need 6 Euros worth.
Fun.
Well, after fiddling with the washer, and playing with where the soap is supposed to go (for a good 15 mins) AND accepting the fact that we now have LOTS of tokens that we will never use again, a man with an instantly confused face, walks into the laudromat. It's then that Chris, thank you God, sells her tokens to the man. He then tells us about himself, that he is from the Phillipines and here with three kids on vacation. And together, the three of us, two Americans and Phillipino try our best to help one another with the laundry.
If that's not good enough for a sitcom, soon walks in a young girl who we later find out is German and from Koln. She too is confused and her English is broken, but she almost puts a 50 Euro into the machine and Chris yells to save her life. So now, together, two Americans, a Phillipino and a German struggle together to do laundry together.
And then, connected by the forces of laundry, three continents are having a converstaion about their lives, their trips, and, of course, laundry.
It may not be cool to you but to me, I thought it was freaking awesome.
It's after that that Chris and I travel to the Uffizi to go on another Context tour (these tours are fantastic-the woman who guided us for MIchelangelo's life for example was a Context tour. Book them whenever you can when you go overseas-they don't allow more than six people in your group and it makes a WORLD of difference.). This time we are paired with a man named Maurizio with shaggy black hair and a thick Italian accent, who Chris might have had a little crush on...
We toured for three and a half hours. We saw Medieval gothic works, complete with the gold leafing that was famous back then. We saw the Birth of Venus. We saw works by Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Botticelli (just to name a few).
We did all of that for three and a half hours and didn't even TOUCH this massive museum. But I loved it. Gorgeous. My favorite painting was Tondo Donni by Michelangelo. A round piece of art with colors that were so vibrant-I wanted so badly to take a picture, and even though I could've gotten away with it, I figured for the sake of the art and for respect for the artist, I decided not to.
After the Uffizi, we met up with our friends Wanda and Jenny. I believe I mentioned them in a previous blog and that we had plans to meet up with them for dinner. After we finally get a hold of each other and meet our newest friends, we stop at a local bar for a glass of wine and then around 8:30 PM make our way to our desination dinner, Il Latini, a family style pure pure pure Italian restaurtant.
When we arrive, we have to wait a few minutes but to make our wait "even sweeter", as the owner said, he gave us white wine and cheese.
Yep, I don't hate it.
And then we proceed to our table where we are seated with Dominique, a Swiss enginner, and Maria, a Russian (who now lives in Norway), who were both on business. I could write for hours about our meal, but I think it's better if you ask for the stories in person from either me or Chris. But LOTS of AMAZING food was eaten, wine was drunk, grappe almost killed us, Limoncini was given to us without even asking, and pictures were taken thanks to our amazing and patient waiter, Antonio.
Let me also quickly state, that Antonio was also amazing because cooked our steak for us after he saw our faces with the beyond raw piece meat that we were given...We knew this, but traditional Florentine bistecca (steak) is only charred on the grill five minutes on each side. AND it's three inches thick. Oh yeah, you do the math of what that looks like...RAW...
An amazing night and now with new friends in Switzerland and Norway, Wanda, Jenny, Chris, and I pranced and waltzed around Florence, slowly making it back to our hotels (Oh, and I may have jumped on a carosel...and been thrown off a carosel...). And now the four of us will be meeting in Siena to have another glorious meal.
To life. L'chaim.
Ciao ciao!
Love love,
Adrienne
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